Name of the operation: "Fly Formula", literally in French "Flight of powdered milk".

President Joe Biden announced, Wednesday, May 18, the establishment of an airlift and the use of a law dating from the Cold War to try to solve the shortage of baby milk in the United States, which has become a headache. political head for his administration.

The Ministry of Defense "will use its contracts with commercial cargo airlines, as it did during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, to transport products from factories overseas" satisfying the American security standards, the White House said in a statement.

This project will "accelerate the importation and distribution of baby milk", providing support to "manufacturers who continue to increase their production", added the executive.

 >> Shortage of infant milk in the United States: a summary of all the crises of the moment

Priority of production lines

Joe Biden also appealed to the "Defense Production Act", a text inherited from the Cold War, in order to require producers of the ingredients necessary for the production of infant milk to deliver in priority the manufacturers of this essential commodity to the parents of young children.

"Asking companies to prioritize and allocate (their resources) to the production of key baby milk ingredients will make it easier to scale up production and speed up supply chains," the White House said.

I'm taking two new steps to increase baby formula supply:



- Invoking the Defense Production Act to increase domestic production


- Launching Operation Fly Formula to use federal planes to fly formula in from abroad



We're making sure safe formula gets to all who need it.

pic.twitter.com/lnkxsaCY6T

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 18, 2022

Initially caused by problems in those same supply chains and a lack of labor due to the pandemic, the shortage of baby milk was made worse by the closure in February of a factory of the manufacturer Abbott in Michigan, after a product recall suspected of causing the deaths of two infants.

The American drug agency (FDA) ended up clearing the milk, but it took until Monday for Abbott to reach an agreement with American justice in order to be able to restart production at this factory.

"As fast as possible"

This very rare shortage of this essential product for many parents has turned into a political crisis for the Democratic president, much criticized by the Republican opposition.

Joe Biden, anxious to underline his action in the face of this problem which is still weighing down his popularity rating less than six months before the mid-term parliamentary elections, also sent a letter on Wednesday to his Ministers of Health and Agriculture.

"I ask you to take all possible and appropriate measures to import more baby milk", he wrote to them about the "Fly Formula" operation, noting in passing that his administration's efforts to restart production after the shutdown of the Michigan factory made it possible to produce "more baby milk in April than before the recall" of the batches in question.

Agriculture Minister Tom Vilsack responded immediately, saying in a statement that his office would "immediately" begin to implement presidential directives to stock stores with baby milk "as quickly as possible".

Disarray

The food group Nestlé, which has two factories in the United States for the production of infant milk, had already announced on Tuesday its intention to send additional quantities of this product by plane to the United States, from Switzerland and the Netherlands.

According to data provider Datasembly, the stock-out rate of infant formula had reached 43% by the end of last week in the United States.

For many families, formula milk is a necessity, especially in low-income homes where mothers, forced to return to work immediately after childbirth, cannot breastfeed.

To their concern was added the rise in prices.

Their dismay can be seen on social media, where posts shared hundreds of thousands of times call on parents to make their own baby milk - which paediatricians warn risks making infants sick.

With AFP

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